CHAPTER IV.

THAT LOVE RULES OVER ALL THE AFFECTIONS, AND PASSIONS, AND EVEN GOVERNS THE WILL, ALTHOUGH THE WILL HAS ALSO
A DOMINION OVER IT.

Love being the first complacency which we take in good, as we
shall presently show, it of course precedes desire; and indeed
what other thing do we desire, but that which we love? It
precedes delectation, for how could we rejoice in the enjoyment
of a thing if we loved it not? It precedes hope, for we hope
only for the good which we love: it precedes hatred, for we
hate not evil, except for the love we have for good: nor is evil
evil but because it is contrary to good. And, Theotimus, it is
25the same with all the other passions and affections; for they all
proceed from love, as from their source and root.

For which cause the other passions and affections, are good
or bad, vicious or virtuous, according as the love whence they
proceed is good or bad; for love so spreads over them her own
qualities, that they seem to be no other than this same love.
S. Augustine reducing all these passions and affections to four,
as did also Boetius, Cicero, Virgil, with the greatest part of the
ancients:—"Love," says he, "tending to the possession of what
it loves, is termed concupiscence or desire; having and possessing it it is called joy; flying
that which is contrary to it, it is
named fear; but if this really seizes it and it feels it, love is
named grief, and consequently these passions are evil if the love
be evil, good if it be good. The citizens of the heavenly city
fear, desire, grieve, love, and because their love is just, all their
affections are also just. Christian doctrine subjects the reason
to God that he may guide and help it, and subjects all these
passions to the spirit, that it may bridle and moderate them and
so convert them to the service of justice and virtue. The
right will is good love, the bad will is evil love;"2727De Civ. Dei, xiv. ix. that
is to say, in a word, Theotimus, love has such dominion over the
will as to make it exactly such as it is itself.

The wife ordinarily changes her condition into that of her
husband, becoming noble if he be noble, queen if he be king,
duchess if he be duke. The will also changes her condition
according to the love she espouses; if this be carnal she
becomes carnal, if this be spiritual she is spiritual, and all the
affections of desire, joy, hope, fear, grief, as children born of
the marriage between love and the will, consequently receive
their qualities from love. In short, Theotimus, the will is only
moved by her affections, amongst which love, as the primum mobile and first affection,
gives motion to all the rest, and causes all the other motions of the soul.

But it does not follow hence that the will does not also rule
over love, seeing that the will only loves while willing to love,
and that of many loves which present themselves she can apply
26herself to which she pleases, otherwise there would be no love
either forbidden or commanded. She is then mistress over her
loves as a maiden over her suitors, amongst whom she may
make election of which she pleases. But as after marriage she
loses her liberty and of mistress becomes subject to her husband's power, remaining taken by him
whom she took, so the will which at her own pleasure made election of love, after she
has chosen one remains subject to it. And as the wife is
always subject to the husband whom she has chosen as long as he
lives, and if he die regains her former liberty to marry another, so
while a love lives in the will it reigns there, and the will is subject to its movements, but if
this love die she can afterwards take another. And again there is a liberty in the will which
the wife has not, and it is that the will can reject her love at her
pleasure, by applying her understanding to motives which make
it displeasing, and by taking a resolution to change the object.
For thus, to make divine love live and reign in us, we kill self-love, and if we cannot
entirely annihilate it at least we weaken
it in such a way that though it lives yet it does not reign in us.
As, on the contrary, in forsaking divine love we may adhere to
that of creatures, which is the infamous adultery with which
the Divine lover so often reproaches sinners.